Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Filmmakers as Poets

I read a short story once that was dystopian, it talked about a world where Film makers were in the role of Poets- no money, small audiences, and Poets were in the role of movie stars, lots of money, large audiences.
It was an interesting exercise because it showed the difference between Arts that are businesses and arts that are not. The reality is that Poets and Poetry are important for our society and have always been but they are lousy at marketing. Other artforms, visual arts, dance, music, and also craftarts, fiction, pottery,textiles, Filmmaking have a powerful marketing force behind them and that creates a sense of the genre and allows for these artists to have a life doing what they love. Apart from universities Poetry does not have this and since most poets do not want to 'sell out' we remain on the margins while mediocrities in other genres fill the airwaves with clap trap. I thought allot about this during the Oscars, Sofia Coppola won
best original screenplay for a really mediocre writing job that was carried by Bill Murray. Yet, few people will know about great poets like Lisa Jarnot or Peter Gizzi and they will never be on stage.

I think in the end Poets need to be more demanding and do better marketing along with creating personalities for themselves.